HMS Saracen

by Douglas Reeman

  Chesnaye lay back, his eyes fixed on Pickles’ body as he reached the end of his climb. For a second he peered down at Chesnaye and then, turning his back on the enemy hills, he commenced to wave his aims towards the distant, toylike ship.

  Still the rifles cracked, but as the big searchlight on the Saracen’s bridge flashed an acknowledgement Pickles began to send his message. Chesnaye could picture the activity in the big turret, the gleaming shells being rammed home, the creak of elevating gear as the twin barrels lifted on to their target.

  `Finished!’ Pickles threw his cap in the air and yelled, `They’re going to open fire now!’

  Then he fell. Without a cry or protest he rolled down the steep slope and crumpled across Chesnaye, who could only stare horrified at the widening patch of scarlet across his chest. Pickles’ eyes were still wide from excitement, but without recognition or understanding. With a sob Ches-e naye pulled him against his own body, aware again of the cold hands and that last insane eagerness.

  Overhead, the great shells winged on their way to roar and thunder across the enemy lines, to destroy guns and stores, and the men who waited for the attack.

  But Chesnaye did not notice. He watched his dead friend and the bright red stain which was still spreading. He remembered that night at Gibraltar, when it had all begun. Pickles with his shirt sprinkled with port. So eager to please.

  It still seemed impossible to believe what had happened. Yet the sigh of the monitor’s shells told him it was true, Once again Pickles had surprised them all.

  `Signal from tug Crusader, sir.’ The Yeoman of Signals paused and coughed uneasily. For a moment he thought that the Captain was asleep in his chair on the deserted bridge, but even as he looked Royston-Jones turned his head very slightly and gave a faint gesture with his hand. `Will be alongside in half an hour. Will you be ready to slip?’ The Yeoman followed the Captain’s gaze towards the tall-sided hospital ship which was anchored two cables away. White and graceful, she looked invulnerable against the low hills and straggling trees of the Mudros foreshore. `Signal ends, sir.’

  `Thank you, Yeoman. Tell them affirmative.’ RoystonJones held himself stiffly in his chair until the Yeoman had clattered down the ladder to the signal bridge, and then allowed his narrow shoulders to sag. There was so much waiting to be done, yet his mind and brain rebelled against even leaving the bridge. The sun was harsh across his smoke-stained uniform, and the humid air was filled with the smells of scorched paintwork and burned cordite. It seemed impossible that the ship was so still, that the great guns, blackened and blistered with continuous firing, were silent in their turret. Without looking over the screen he knew the seamen were busy on the upper deck, still using their hoses and scrubbers to clean away the filth and dirt of the bombardment and the destruction. He stiffened as a string of bunting broke out from the hospital ship’s mainyard. She was getting ready to sail. It did not take much imagination to picture the pain and misery which was outwardly hidden by that white hull, he thought.

  Almost unwillingly he stood up and walked to the rear of the bridge. Very gently he ran his hand across the scarred teak rail and looked up at the tall funnel pitted with shell splinters, blackened by smoke. Down towards the maindeck where only hours before the hands had been busy removing the empty shell-cases from around the secondary armament and gathering the shattered remains of boats and hatches, and mopping away the dark stains from the once smooth deck planking. The ship still listed to port, but she was quite motionless, as if resting. Shortly they would be weighing anchor once more, but this time in the care of some grubby tug which would take them on the long haul to Alexandria. And then? Royston-Jones shook himself as the weariness and inner misery closed over him once again.

  There was a quiet step on the gratings nearby, and he turned quickly as if to cover his thoughts.

  Lieutenant Hogarth saluted and glanced momentarily towards the splintered topmast above the bridge. `I have reorganised the watches, sir. The Bosun has given orders for the fo’c’sle party to fall in in fifteen minutes.’

  Royston-Jones blinked. It seemed strange for Hogarth to be speaking about the ship’s organisation instead of his beloved guns. It should have been Godden, but, of course, he was already in that hospital ship, a shattered arm his passport to another world. `Very good.’ He forced himself to look at Hogarth’s concerned face. `Anything else?’

  Hogarth shut his mind to the scenes he had witnessed for so many long hours. The shell-holes and broken plates. Armour twisted into the fantastic shapes of wet cardboard, everything battered and smashed into a shambles. It did not seem as if the ship would ever be the same again.

  He cleared his throat. `I think you should go aft to your quarters for a while, sir,’ he said carefully. `I have instructed your steward to get a meal for you.’ As the Captain did not reply he added more firmly, `You have done more than enough, sir!’

  Royston-Jones made a small sound. It could have been a laugh or a sob. `You are talking like a commander already, Hogarth !’ He placed his hands on the screen, as if to feel the reactions of his battle-torn ship. It was quite still. He sighed. `There were moments when I thought we should never see Mudros again. Or anywhere else, for that matter !’

  They stared in silence as the big hospital ship’s anchor cable began to shorten and a small cloud of steam rose from her capstan.

  If he closed his eyes for one moment he knew that he would not sleep. They were all worried about him, but he knew that food and rest were not the answer. If he faltered for an instant and allowed himself to relax he knew it would all come back. The bombardment and the havoc wrought by the Turkish guns would be a mere backcloth to what had happened later. The returning boats, barely half filled, and then mostly with wounded men.

  He could torture himself by remembering Major De L’Isle’s empty face as he had climbed to the bridge to make his report. The bridge, with its pitted plating and dead men, an unrecognisable place.

  Royston-Jones had sat quite still in his chair, almost afraid to look at the marine’s features as he retold the efforts and the final retreat of the landing party.

  De L’Isle had said of Sub-Lieutenant Pringle, `He was shot during the final Turkish attack.’ Then, He was shot in the back, sir.’

  Pringle’s death had formed a background to the rest of that heartbreaking report. Somehow it seemed to ‘sum up their brave but pathetic efforts, to mark the whole episode with shame.

  Over half the landing force had been killed, and many of the remainder wounded. Some had died well, others had ended their moments in the madness and bitterness of men who had been cheated and betrayed.

  Royston.Jones listened unmoving to De L’Isle’s account of Pickles’ death, and wondered how much more he could stand.

  De L’Isle’s harsh voice had been unsteady. `Colour Sergeant Barnes had to go up for the two snotties in the end, sir. Chesnaye was in such a bad way we thought he was past hope. But even then he put up a fight.’

  Royston-Jones’ mind had been too dulled to realise what he meant. `Fight?’

  `He wouldn’t leave young Pickles, sir. He hung on to his body and refused to leave without him!’ De L’Isle’s reserve had suddenly fallen away. `My God, I was proud of them ! All of them!’

  Now it was over, and soon the Saracen would be crossing the open sea once more. Perhaps then he would be able to tell De L’Isle and the others. Tell them of the signal he had received to mark the end of what might now be classed as a mere episode.

  So far only Godden knew, and he would no doubt make use of its contents once his own personal pain was sufficiently dimmed for him to remember beyond those moments of united suffering and valour.

  The attack, the suffering, the slaughter, had been for nothing. At the very last moment the Army had not made its attack.

  As Pickles died on a bare rock pinnacle, and Chesnaye fought his own battles against pain and grief, even while Pringle received a bullet from some unknown marksman as he ran terror-stricken
from the enemy; while all these things and many more were happening, and the Saracen changed from a sparkling symbol to a battered and listing hulk as she pressed home her attack, the soldiers stood in their trenches and listened. Some were grateful, others were ashamed. All wondered at the circumstances which allowed such things to happen.

  Royston-Jones had not left his bridge since the anchor had dropped. He knew he was afraid of what he might see and of what he might find in the eyes of his men. For nothing, he thought. It was all for nothing………….

  De L’Isle had faltered as he had been about to leave the bridge. `What shall I say in my report about Pringle?’ He had seemed at a loss. `I don’t see why the others should have their names slurred because of him!’

  He had replied : `Say that he died of his wounds. That is enough.’

  Hogarth’s voice cut into his wretchedness, `The hospital ship has weighed, sir.’

  Like a white ghost the ex-liner began to glide between the moored ships. Royston-Jones saw, too, the tug’s ungainly shape hovering nearby. `Tell Lieutenant Travis to come to the bridge,’ he said to a messenger.

  The young seaman only stared at him until Hogarth gestured quickly for him to leave. Quietly he said, `Travis was killed, sir.’

  The Captain rubbed his dry hands across his face. `Oh yes. Thank you.’ He turned, caught off guard again as a ripple of cheering floated across the glistening water. `What is that?’

  Hogarth said : `The hospital ship, sir. The men on her upper deck are cheering the old Saracen!’

  Royston-Jones blinked and rubbed his eyes. `They are cheering us?’

  `Yes, sir.’ Hogarth watched sadly as the little figure in soiled uniform and scorched cap looked round him as if lost in bewilderment.

  Then with something like his old vigour he climbed on to the screen and held his cap high above his head. As his arm tired he changed his cap from hand to hand, his eyes blinded by the sun.

  Long after the hospital ship’s wash had been smoothed from the quiet anchorage he still stood and saluted his men, and a memory.

  Unlike the engines of a warship, those of the hospital ship seemed far away and remote, so that the gentle tremor which had started almost unnoticeably was more of a sensation, like something in the mind.

  Chesnaye cursed the weakness in his body and tried once more to lift himself in the narrow, spotless-sheeted bunk. He had no idea what part of the ship he was in, nor did he care. From what he could see in the vast compartment he deduced that the whole vessel was crammed with wounded like himself, regimented and lined up in enamelled bunks, bandaged, splintered and drugged for the voyage to England. Above his head a large fan purred discreetly, and the long rectangular port which opened on to the sunlit anchorage seemed to accentuate his new status, his sense oil not belonging. By straining every muscle and ignoring the’ fire in his thigh he could lift his head far enough to see the tapering topmasts of an anchored cruiser, her commissioning pennant limp in the scorching heat, her tall funnels devoid of smoke. And, beyond, the rounded hills which now seemed alien and hostile.

  Another gentle vibration rattled the enamel dishes on his small bunk-side table, and very faintly he could hear the shout of orders and the brief scurry of feet on the big ship’s spacious upper deck. Soon they would be leaving Mudros and the Mediterranean, perhaps for ever.

  He fell back, biting his lip to stem the feeling of anguish and misery. Like unfinished pictures in his mind the memories of the Peninsula, with its record of pain and death, flooded through him. Those last moments were still hazy and obscure, and again he wondered if time would clear away the mist, or if in fact he would lose the reminders altogether.

  He closed his eyes tightly as Pickles’ face came back to him. The empty loneliness of that rock pinnacle and the triumphant crack of snipers’ rifles. Nothing seemed to go’ beyond that, but for his own weak but desperate struggle with Sergeant Barnes, who had somehow climbed into that terrible place and had carried him to safety. There were a few madly distorted recollections of running marines, their mouths and eyes working in frenzy or fear, rifles glowing with heat as they fired and fired again at the invisible enemy. Then there was one final picture, stark and terribly clear.

  He had seen Leading Seaman Tobias running towards him as he lay helpless in a tiny gully, the man’s face suddenly alight with pleasure. Tobias’s expression had changed to one of disbelief as Pringle had burst from cover and had run blindly towards the path to the beach. Chesnaye still wondered how many of the others who had lived had seen what he and Tobias had then witnessed. Able Seaman Wellard, bleeding from several wounds, had staggered to his feet from a small pile of rocks, his teeth bared in his beard from the agony that movement must have cost him. As more bullets whipped and cracked about him he lifted his rifle, the final effort making him cry out like some trapped animal, and then he had fired. As Pringle’s running figure had fallen, Wellard had thrown down his rifle and stood quite still. Then, with a final glance towards the gentle sea he had limped away, back towards the enemy lines. He had not been seen again.

  Chesnaye realised that morphia must have claimed his reeling mind for some long hours after that moment. When he had opened his eyes again he had been aboard the Saracen, and there was no more gunfire, no scent of smoke and scorched bracken in his nostrils; just the pain and the sense of near breakdown to keep the memories alive.

  The Captain had visited him, but it now seemed like part of a dream, with Royston-Jones’ figure hovering against a background of red mist. Beaushears, too, had found a moment, and had patiently answered Chesnaye’s desperate, wandering questions.

  Now, as some of the mist cleared, he could piece together what he had been told. Of the faces he had known in the Saracen who were now dead, or scattered somewhere in this ship like himself. Of Lieutenant Travis who had lost a leg but stayed on the bridge until he had died. Of Nutting, the Padre, who had gone mad as he had crawled from one corpse to the next, his gabbled prayers meaningless in a world for which he had never been trained. And of Commander Godden, who despite his wound seemed happier and more relaxed than he had ever been.

  Beaushears had said bitterly : `He’s glad to be out of it He must think the Captain acted wrongly.’ He had shrugged, suddenly old and weary. `To think I once thought him a better man than the Captain!’

  Chesnaye remembered, too, what Major De L’Isle had said when he had paid one of his visits to his wounded marines. `It could have been a great campaign, boy!’ He had peered round the shell-scarred wardroom which was being used as an additional sick bay, his red face sad and disillusioned. `It was devised by a genius, but it was left to bloody fools to carry out!’

  Perhaps that was a suitable epitaph.

  There was a step on the deck beside the bunk, and Chesnaye opened his eyes. For several moments he stared at the soldier who leaned on his stick and peered down at him.

  Robert Driscoll took a deep breath and shifted his band daged leg to a more careful position. Very carefully he said `I knew I’d find you if I looked long enough, Dick.’

  They watched each other without speaking. Driscoll looked thin and much older, his uniform hanging on him like the rags on a scarecrow. After a while he added, ‘We can go and see Helen together now, eh?’

  As the hospital ship shortened her cable, Driscoll perches himself on Chesnaye’s bunk, and each allowed his thought: to drift back to the distant Peninsula and all that it would mean to them for as long’ as they lived.

  Driscoll’s sudden appearance had brought a faint warmth to Chesnaye’s heart, but sadness too with thei memory it had conjured up. Again it was of Pickles, when he had come to look for him. `I knew I’d find you if I ran, far enough !’Perhaps he was still up there in the cleft of rock, his eyes wide and empty of pain.

  There was the sound of cheering, and Chesnaye roused himself from the drowsiness which always seemed to be ready to close in. With sudden desperation he gasped `Help me, Bob ! Hold me up!’

  His eyes eager
ly sought the bottom edge of the big open port as Driscoll’s arm lifted his shoulders from the bunk. For a moment he thought the other ship was moving, and then with something like numbness he realised that it was the hospital ship which was gathering way and already gliding towards the end of the anchorage.

  He had to blink rapidly to clear his eyes so as not to miss even the smallest detail of that scarred but so familiar shape which passed slowly across his vision.

  The high, ugly bridge and tripod mast, the big, ungainly’I turret, and those splintered decks which had once gleamed’ so white and new. In his mind’s eye he could see the three battle ensigns, and hear the cheering soldiers on the laden troopships.

  Driscoll said quietly, `I’ve got my binoculars here, Dick?

  Chesnaye struggled upright and shook his head. The Saracen was already a world away, but the sudden pain of separation was almost too much. He wanted to find the strengthh to cheer with the others, but nothing came.

  Almost to himself he replied : `No, I want to see her just as she is. Or perhaps as she was.’

  The hospital ship altered course, and the small picture of the blackened listing ship changed to one of the open sea.

  Robert Driscoll stood up and glanced down the long lines of -silent bunks. Perhaps, he thought, if someone like Chesnaye could feel as he did it had not all been a waste of time.

  Limping heavily, he moved across to the open port, feeling as he did so the first easy pitch to the vessel’s deck as she met the first swell of the open sea. He leaned out over, the crisp water and drew several. deep breaths.

  He tried to sum it all up with a few thoughts, but he could only think of it as a farewell to something lost. The brooding shape of Achi Baba, the trenches and the wire. The true comradeship of fear and pride, the dirt and the ignorance of what lay in store.

  He turned his back on the sea and looked towards Chesnaye’s white face, and wondered.

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